After Mogul
by Ultimagu
Summary: Sequel to The End. Civilization is left absolutely crumbled after Mogul dies. Only one outpost of humans remains, Alpha Rhea a small moon orbiting Chiron. Is there any hope for survival? Fourth in Brianback series.
1. Mankind Alone

**AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure. **

**Review Commentaries:**

**What?,**** …****,****Crap:**I know you're T-Bird. It really annoys me that your early reviews used different names, but whatever. None of your reviews make sense except the last one. I know it was crappy. I'm working on that.

**Numbuh****six-sixtysix:**As always I enjoy getting reviews from you, man. I believe the situation is plausible for several reasons. Eric Santiago-Brianbacks is the son of two of the founding faction leaders originally hailing from Earth. He's a second-generation leader in that respect. His parents were also beloved in the United Factions, that little spoken of federation of factions at the end of _When__Gaians__Throw__an__Orgy_ which was all but destroyed by the time of _The__End_. He has, as you mention, a clear genealogical right to this position. He also has a bureaucratic, or legal, claim to the position when the Chief-Director steps down from power after the destruction of Dragon's Nest. Combined with these two reasons he also has a very good reason found throughout history, and that is the charismatic reasoning. When founding his power basis, Eric Brianbacks is as charismatic as he is ruthless in maintaining that power basis. He is not a first-generation leader like the faction leaders we are familiar with: Yang, Zakharov, Santiago, Miriam, Lal, Deidre, Morgan, or my invented first-generation leaders Mogul and Kurchask. He is, however, by the mean level of merit on Alpha Rhea, the most capable of leading humanity in this time of crisis.

I hope you continue to enjoy my stories, and as always, I love to read your reviews!

**(Story)**

_The dawn of 2696_

Man in his very essence is chaotic. He is illogical, mundane, and very jealous. What does not belong to him he makes his own. If he cannot make it is own then he burns it into annihilation. One of the key things he burns, are the bridges between his heart and the hearts of others.

For nearly 60,000 years, man blossomed on Earth. The problem was that he blossomed in four distinctly different ways. Man was fundamentally different on Earth. He could not assimilate into a united being of coexistence. So in the waning days of Earth, the U.N. Unity was the last hope for survival of a diversified species. The Unity careened through the vast black sea of space till it came to Alpha Centuari, and there it found a decent planet that they called Chiron. With all due haste, in light of the assassination of Captain Garland, Chiron was settled by seven distinct human factions.

The difference between the men of Earth and the men of Chiron was that they were fundamentally the same. They had the same background, escapees of the ravages of Earth. Man might have united under the skies of Chiron, if only for one thing. The planet itself was alive, and viewed man like a disease upon its' surface. So there was a struggle between the already weakened man and the long living mindworms.

In the end, under the skies of Chiron, and under the leadership of Mogul Brianbacks, man fell to the ravages of man's internal turmoil and the equally destructive ravages of the Chirote anti-bodies.

Man fell a distance which brought him even closer to the brink of extinction. Now, extinction is a funny thing with man. He'd brought hundreds of creatures to extinction, and thousands more to the brink of it. Yet he himself could not cast the stone and die peacefully for his sins. He wanted a tertiary chance.

It was on the little moon called Alpha Rhea, orbiting Chiron, named after the moon of Saturn that man made his tertiary attempt to survive and prosper. There, nearly 3,000 suddenly felt the bridge to the 40,000 on Chiron extinguish. The wayward winds of Life had cast the bridges asunder. The Heavens had cast Man back beneath them, righting Mogul Brianbacks catch of fame for over 200 years in the pinnacle of utopia.

The communications officer on the primary base of Alpha Rhea, Wosul, tuned every station he could think of. Old cities, old bases, sea bases, land bases, the new air base Dragon's Flight. Nothing but static. He turned to the stations of the satellites. Nothing but static.

The man did not want to believe it. Alpha Rhea was barely self-sufficient. There would be next to no way to return to anywhere outside of this rock. He looked at the screen of the part of Chiron they could see, and he could barely catch the glimpses of the isle of Dexamenus. It looked fine. Of course that was his vantage point, some 2,000 kilometers above it.

When he let word get around there was a panic. What had caused it? Perhaps the mindworms? Perhaps the rogue University-Morganite Confederation had managed to beat back the beasts. Alas none of their known frequencies gave any other noise than static.

In his defense statement among the colonial council, the communications officer of Wosul defended himself by saying that he had become immersed in a sea of depression at the knowledge that his venerated leader, Mogul Brianbacks, had been torn asunder by the mindworms destruction of the First Great Wall and Dragon's Nest.

They were alone: 2,861 of them. That was the human population across the entire Universe that they knew of. They were truly on the brink of extinction now. Once the panic had settled, behind the scenes a meeting was taking place between the top officers, now the leading men of the entire human race and yet never having expected to be placed in such a position. They were all mediocre officers of marginal background who were more exiled to Alpha Rhea while Mogul focused on the defense of his super city-state faction.

At a round table, deep inside of Wosul sat the men who now were in charge of the entirety of humanity; they were not similar in the strength of the character of the seven founding faction leaders in 2100. Wosul's Chief-Director, Jubal Rans. The Communications Officer, Sybil Narso. Alpha Rhea's highest rank soldier, Colonel Mustar Green. There was the drill sergeant for the trainees, Sergeant Hugh Hatter. As well as the Head Technician, Marco Rail.

Each one had a claim to be the leader. Not all of them wanted to be the leader. Colonel Mustar Green had no desire to lead the quintessential amount of humans left. While Sergeant Hugh Hatter was up and roaring to do so and claim rankage over the colonel. The problem was he was outranked by the Colonel. Wosul's Director, Jubal Rans knew how to keep a single base running, but he had no experience in maintaining an entire network of bases, much less the political beauracracy necessary to do so. The Communications Officer, Sybil Narso was too easily panicked, and had absolutely no clue on how to lead anyone, and this was before he was placed on trial. Just as the Head Technician, Marco Rail had no experience with that either and only managed a staff in Wosul of some 30 men.

As such, three of the five were trying to convince Jubal Rans that he was the one who should take the head, while Hugh Hatter tried to get them to see that he could do the job. At length, Jubal Rans stepped down as Chief-Director, and his assistant, who was just ten years old, took reign as Director. His story was a tragic one.

His father and mother were powerful and of quite some prestige. Yet, his mother was assassinated when he was four. Being the son of two very prominent people, he was given some priority in being given the position Assistant Director of Wosul in order to start his career in the management of the United Factions in addition to giving his a safe harbor during the turbulent times on Chiron. Now, it seemed even his father was dead too. His name was Eric Santiago-Brianbacks. He did not suffer from schizophrenia like his father. Instead he was a strong young boy. Even at his age he held firm. When he became the Director of Wosul by default, the meeting came to a quick close as he was determined to lead the leftovers of human kind.

He took the stage to address the entire Alpha Rhea colony shortly after that crucial meeting. He barely stood above the podium he was delivering his address from. His dark brown hair reminded the people of his father. His black eyes and tanned skin reminded them of his mother.

"It seems we have come a very long way from 'civilization'. Around 700 years ago, human kind was made up of six billion men, women, and children. Around 300 years ago, we made up some 810,000 men, women, and children. Now, today, and in the present, human kind is made up of 2,861 men, women, and a single child. The cradle of our life is some 4.3 parsecs away and none of us have ever even seen it beyond pictures. Earth means nothing to us. Chiron is our home. Alpha Rhea is our nest. Even when things get darker than anything out in space where there are no stars, the light is always coming at you. When the Universe began, and a million light years away from where it all began there was nothing, even as something was being born, there was no light. There was no sound, or air. Just a vast, cold, emptiness. Then the light came forth, and even though it might not end up anything there, it still saw the light!" His little hands smashed into the podium.

"We have a chance to see that light despite all our suffering. I say we unite! No more stalling. No more waiting. A final all or nothing measure!"

There was naught but silence. People were speechless. Here was a little boy telling them they could survive. No, here was the son of Mogul Brianbacks and Corazon Santiago telling them they could survive! In a desperate time the people turned to what naturally was supposed to be their leader in the event of the Chief-Director's resignation and that person just happened to be the son of their dearly dead Great Ones. If anyone could bring them to salvation, it was the boy in front of them. In an instant, the silence turned into cheering. Cheering that found its way onto a station, and careened off in all directions. Only to be caught by the pysche of the planet. It could see its enemy, but it couldn't do anything...yet.

**(Story)**

**AN: December 7th, 2011: Hey guys! I hope you're appreciating the effort I go through to revamp this entire series! I'll be returning to working on _Tails __Combined_ pretty soon so there won't be any more edits for _After __Mogul _for a little while after this chapter. As always, I encourage you to review my stories while I fix my lack of commentaries for the reviews on _The __End_ which I just noticed in posting this edit.**

**Goodnight New Cleveland!**

**Author's Announcements:**

I know hardly anyone reads my profile (which wouldn't matter since it's out of date anyway), so I have posted these following announcements in all of my stories to let you formally know that I will be attempting to write chapters for most of my stories once again. I cannot guarantee anything, but I am most willing to make the effort.

That's the important part. Here come the details (your queue to leave if you want).

**Reasons Why I Haven't Been Writing:**

Well…geez, put me on the spot without time for cookies or milk. I haven't been writing mostly because of the combined dedications my life has required of me. In the time since I wrote _Memoirs__of__a__Time__Traveler_ I have done the following things, each further complicating my life as a burgeoning adult:

1. Began a polyamorous relationship.

2. Managed to get my girlfriend of five years pregnant.

3. Fought with the parents of the newest member of our 'Triad' in the Triangular relationship.

4. Finally given up the idea of trying to treat both of my girlfriends equal in public status and married my pregnant girlfriend (to avoid the evil state of Indiana's bureaucracy).

5. Had my mother-in-law move in to help us with bills.

6. Had a child whom we call Alex.

7. Managed to obtain a 35 hour job (which previously had been 20 hours since after #3 but before #4).

8. Have continued my undergraduate education throughout the entire process.

**Reasons Why I Will Begin Writing Anew:**

These are the reasons why I'm more optimistic about a renewed writing!

1. Resigned from my job since my boss is a douche and was probably going to fire me anyway.

2. Finals are over!

3. Looking for another job and taking care of Alex, but still plenty of free time from the additional hours (some 70 in my week) which have been freed up recently.

4. Because I hate to see 'abandoned' on my stories!

I look forward to presenting everyone with wonderful new material on old ideas. Let it be known, however, that not all of my lack of posting is from a lack of writing. I have written three chapters for various stories when my computer crashed around seven months ago. Don't blame me, blame the elves.

So, without further ado, I bid you welcome into a new age of writing by Ultimagu.


	2. Year One

**AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure. **

**(Story)**

_Mid-2696_

If there was one thing that could be said about little Eric Brianbacks, it was he had been granted his father's genius with his mother's strict nature. When he came upon an idea to better make the bases and make them self-sufficient, he wasn't putting forth a bill to be signed by some legislation. He spoke by word of mouth to the bases, himself, no bungling up his orders having it carried from one man to another and to another. _No_. Eric Brianbacks gave orders personally. Here was a boy going on eleven soon, and he was commanding the known human race.

That is to say, he was attempting to take control of the human race.

For the most part, when Eric told people to do something, they did it. He had made on example of what sloth or rebellion would result in. He called it Authoritarian Darwinism. If someone did not make the effort to pull their weight, he cut their reins. He made it perfectly clear what would happen. You could be placed into a punishment sphere for two weeks. After those two weeks and a few to recuperate and you still did not increase your efficiency, he _personally_ carved one of his favorite monikers into your skin.

_'No work and all play, makes me a dead man.'_

So if there was another thing you could say about little Eric, it would be had adopted just a tad bit of his father's insanity. Granted he seemed a lot more human because afterwards he had shown his first bit of weakness, found crying over the incident. It had touched many of them. In the very least, it staved off the idea of rebellion. Rebellion at this point in time would only hamper the now 2,815 human lives across the Universe.

That was down from the 2,861 at the beginning of the year after 29 workers committed suicide, and another 15 were incarcerated and executed for rebellion against Eric Brianbacks' state of government.

Given just half a year, several ideas had been presented in order to make the entirety of the Alpha Rhea colony independent. The first thing to do would be to gather the sky hydroponics labs in order to better feed the colony. Next would be to then gather the solar collectors in order to better collect solar energy. Then they would re-man the Nessus mining stations. In fact, there was even an idea to get Nessus to orbit Alpha Rhea. It was still in the mathematical stage, but it was a plausible idea, with Alpha Rhea being about six times the size of Nessus. That would make the two comparable to life back on Earth when Luna orbited the cradle of mankind.

The next big idea would be to introduce more oxygen and nitrogen into the atmosphere of Alpha Rhea. Barring a nearby super nova, the atmosphere should hold, and only take five years to make it entirely breathable. There'd be rain, wind, clouds, lightening. Of course if there was a storm, half the colony could know and experience it at one time due to the small size of the moon.

Little Eric Brianbacks was slowly, but assuredly positioning himself for something. What it was, no one was quite sure. Not even the gods themselves realized how much ability 'little' Eric Brianbacks had gained from his father, Mogul Brianbacks: the very man who waited half a millennium in order to claim his wife and his feelings for her.

Instead, 'little' Eric Brianbacks had his eye on father-sized ambitions, and they would ultimately be his undoing.

**(Story)**

**AN: December 8th, 2011: Well here is the second installation of _After__Mogul_. I've brought it to you earlier than expected because I'm too bored out of my mind with my current reading. I hope you enjoy the improvements made to this chapter and will continue to read more of my stories.**

**That's an elegant way of saying READ AND REVIEW you laymen! BUWAHAHAHA!**


	3. The Quick War

**AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure. **

**(Story)**

_2706_

After ten long years had passed the rectitude with which Eric Brianbacks now served as the Chief Director of the Wosul base, and nominally as the head of the entire Alpha Rhea colony, had achieved many great things in such a short period of time. His position of authority had mandated that the military be under his direct command as the commander-in-chief of the entire Wosul garrison, a measly 300 men.

Colonel Mustar Green was at the foundation of this military support. As Green had been espoused to the cause created by Mogul Brianbacks since the foundation of Eye of the Dragon back in 2474, the man was a willing follower to his increasingly dictator-fashioned leader. Green was not as easily aided by his own subordinate, Hugh Hatter, that matter was solved by a severe nerve stapling as an example towards the 300-manned garrison/army.

The communications officer, Sybil Narso had been acquitted of maliciously hampering the 'remnants of civilization' from effectively acting on the information he had acquired in the knowledge that their brethren on Chiron had been annihilated. Despite his acquittal, the garrison/army still refused to promote the man beyond the rank of lieutenant until they posthumously awarded him the rank of captain after he committed suicide in 2783.

With the army in check, the civil authorities were easily confined to the dwindling role played by the colonial council. Since the colonial council held a much greater sway over the other bases on Alpha Rhea, dubbed by 2706 as 'Man's Last Refuge' or 'Golgotha', Eric continued to politically maneuver the council into conceding concessions to him in extending his power and authority. The only major voice of dissent, Jubal Rans the former Chief-Director, was found murdered in his barrack by several stab wounds. The colonial council would later be directed by Eric Brianbacks in finding the killers, most of whom were active or passive separatists within the council against Eric's stewardship over humanity.

One report on the trial of the killers reminded the reader of the murder of the Earth-born Julius Caesar by the Roman Senate.

With his power basis growing by the day, Eric with his 1,500 populated base, over half of the humans in existence now, directly orchestrated the colonial council to produce republican measures in which that after just ten years since their inception as the only governing body of humans in the entire universe, the atmosphere of 'Golgotha' became much more acclimated towards the human condition.

There were more frequent rains, little snow, and a long period of pleasantly warm temperatures to ensure that the burgeoning staple crops grew out in the fields. This pleasant weather was not accommodated by a common pleasantness in the social sphere of the other, smaller, bases on Alpha Rhea.

At the forefront of the 'dissenters' and 'separatists' was the all-male garrison of Moonby Ridge almost 70 kilometers away from Wosul. Moonby Ridge was an entirely military operation lead by Captain Rodriquez who had been directly appointed by Corazon Santiago of the United Factions to overlook, and eventually administer, the mining operations on Alpha Rhea. The colonial council demanded that Captain Rodriquez report to Colonel Green to be debriefed by the new leaders of the colony in 2703 on the basis that his previous mission as headed by Santiago herself was no longer effective with her death.

Captain Rodriquez declared otherwise. "I was tasked with the growing demands of Alpha Rhea's infrastructure and economy in the mining sector by the god-given Great One, Colonel Corazon Santiago. There is none who can command me otherwise besides the Supreme Being of Mogul Brianbacks himself, our venerated leader who cast the last stone ever needed to fulfill man's greater glory in the image of God and Planet." Rodriquez took his position to be a divine task which no mortal being could alter without divine aid. Considering that his 500 manned army/garrison of Moonby Ridge was the second largest population center on Alpha Rhea, it would be a difficult task for Eric Brianbacks, Colonel Green, or the colonial council to budge his well-defended position.

Privately, Eric Brianbacks attempted to enter into negotiations with Rodriquez claiming that as the sole heir to the Santiago-Brianbacks legacy it was only Eric Brianbacks who could now command the wayward captain.

The captain on the other hand espoused overt rebellious claims that the "little monster" or the "little devil-child" had falsified the claims of the death of their brethren on Chiron, and that it would only be a matter of time before the Big Father, Mogul, would come and severely scold his errant child for trying to play grown-up.

Those were fighting words.

Eric Brianbacks incited the colonial council to denounce Captain Rodriquez and any nay-sayers were imprisoned on the eve of the New Year. By the subsequent morning Moonby Ridge, Dragon's Landing, and The Haunted Woods had all openly declared vendetta against the capital of Wosul and publicly denounced the eternal epithet with which Eric Brianbacks would be remembered, "the little monster."

* * *

_2707_

Eric's War, or the War of 2707, was the quickest war ever fought in human history. Eric Brianbacks recruited the entire population of Wosul, some 1,500 men and women, armed them to the teeth, and began his march along the length of Moonby Ridge where height advantages would not be granted to Captain Rodriquez's men. Eric would not make this another Pickett's March.

Within the span of five hours since the dissenting colonial councilmen had been detained, Eric stood at the head of his large army, considering it was half of all the humans in existence (a statistic never to be reached again), and opened fire with his long-range batteries long before the main body of his army ever got close to Rodriquez's position.

With the trouble of being under very precise artillery fire from several kilometers away, but without a single artillery piece of his own Rodriquez had two clear choices. He could either try to turn this into another Pickett's March and charge the advancing troops, or he could abandon his position for Dragon's Landing which was much better supplied and defended, since it was the first base on all of Alpha Rhea.

As we know, Rodriquez chose the latter as being his only viable option. He chose to abandon the mining operations at Moonby Ridge and instead flee down the ridge side. The sheer drop would make it especially difficult, but the mining gear his army had would allow for a gradual, but quick, dissent. While things were well under way and the artillery fire having stopped to avoid hitting their own troops, Captain Rodriquez came upon the second fold of Eric's plan. While 500 'troops' marched up on the plain of the ridge towards Moonby Ridge base and the artillery of Eric's makeshift camp fired from their secure position 10 kilometers away from the base, 500 'troops' had been sent along both sides of the ridge for when Rodriquez descended after Eric's regular troops smashed Rodriquez on the top of the ridge. Thereby, with a superior fighting position upon a hapless enemy, it only took the detachment of 500 men and women to fire twice and kill some 57 men under Rodriquez and injuring 100 more before Rodriquez officially declared a surrender.

Within the hour of the hour-long battle of Moonby Ridge, the other separatist bases surrendered as well. If the leading figure of the movement could not go against Eric Brianbacks, then who could?

In retrospect, this would be the last time that Eric Brianbacks allowed such an unfavorable situation to question his authority. If the other bases had continued their fight and met on the Eurondas plains between Wosul and Dragon's Landing, the numerically smaller army of the separatists would have won a smashing victory against the mostly civilian and technically trained 'army' of Wosul. The fact was that the only advantage Eric had had over the separatists was his firm authority over the people of Wosul and his quick action nipped the rebellious denizens of Alpha Rhea in the bud.

Now it truly was Golgotha.

* * *

_2708_

Beginning in the next year, after a series of reformations in the colonial council, its' supreme authority over all bases was firmly established. At the head of the council was the Chief-Director of Wosul, Eric Brianbacks, who had the sole veto power which required the council to have a three fourths majority to overturn his decision. Very few pieces of legislation passed that Eric did not want to pass. Most of the ones that did caused unpleasant convictions for their creators within the decade before the legislation was revoked.

The united forces of Golgotha under the colonial council now acted with one directing voice: Eric Brianbacks, the unofficial dictator of humanity.

The first legislation which hit the reminted colonial council was the standardization of military duty. All bases were to be governed by 50 well-trained soldiers per 200 residents. That meant that Wosul would be garrisoned and policed by 250 men out of the 1,537 population. Moonby Ridge would be garrisoned and policed by 100 men out of the 509 men stationed there. Dragon's Landing would be garrisoned and policed by 100 men out of the 483 men stationed there. While the Haunted Woods would be garrisoned and policed by 50 men out of the 301 men stationed there. That accounted for the entirely of the 2,830 men and women on Golgotha.

The second legislation directly linked those garrisons into a united 500 manned army which was under the highest authority in the land, Eric Brianbacks. The Wosul garrison would be commanded by Commander Mustar Greene. The Moonby Ridge garrison would be commanded by Colonel Yangi, Hugh Hatter's replacement. The Dragon's Landing garrison would be commanded by Colonel Eldido, cousin of Sybil Narso but an active accuser of the man of being a dissenter. While the Haunted Woods' garrison would now be commanded by Captain Mikaels who had proved himself to be of superior rank and order during the battle of Moonby Ridge by continuing the march towards the base and gaining a superior position over the descending rebels even though he was not called on to do so and expose himself over the ridge's edge.

The direct consequence of this second piece of legislation separated the ranks of the bases. Commander Greene always had superior say over his colonels in Moonby Ridge and Dragon's Landing while they had direct say over Captain Mikaels. To clear the issue of the possibility of receiving confusing orders from his superiors, the Haunted Woods was incorporated into the Dragon's Landing territory under the third piece of legislation enacted by the colonial council.

This third legislation remapped the civil administration of the territories under the bases authority, which were technically under martial law for quite some time after this until there were enough civilians to effectively govern themselves. This third legislation gave the federal authority in Wosul direct administration over all lands inhabited and administered by mankind or any citizen of Alpha Rhea, as the two were technically synonymous at this time. The bases would have incorporated boundaries as the extent of their jurisdiction and the lands in between these boundaries would come under the authority of the Belt Council, also known as the Frontier Council since it incorporated all the uninhabited lands of Alpha Rhea as well. Wosul itself would remain a military stronghold, ruled only by its' commanding officers, until the death of Eric Brianbacks centuries from this time.

The fourth, and perhaps most important, legislation enacted at the beginning of 2708 was the Infrastructure Act. It stated that, "as all belt and frontier lands remain in the civilian hands of the Belt Council, the roads and byways and highways and railways and subways and superways are to be administered and constructed by the Belt Council which best connects the bases of humanity and does not devastate the fragile eco-system of the planetoid." Meaning, the arteries between the bases were to be expanded without hampering the belt work of establishing an independent eco-system.

This task would be particularly difficult considering the vying competition for civil authorities to build much needed farms to supply the population with food as their reserves ran towards nothing. That was a disaster which Eric Brianbacks would have to divert before it lead into another open rebellion.

**(Story)**

**AN: December 9th, 2011: So what do you guys think of the improvements here? Remember how short this chapter used to be just explaining some random shit in year 10 and then moving directly to year 500? Yeah, that was me getting bored of writing in this series. Now I'm back with a vengeance of my own! O.O Is that mind worms I hear? NOOOOOOO!**

**Review! Or I'll sick my planet-wide orgy-infested 10cm mind worms on you and they'll bore into your skull while you're still awake and lay their eggs behind your eyes so that little baby mind worms will po-...what? Oh...OH! Sorry. Please review? :)**


	4. Reconstruction

**AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure. **

**(Story)**

_2714_

By the year of 2714, Eric Brianbacks had officially been in power for 18 years. He was now 28 years old, and he held command over the entirety of the human species, some 5,000 men, women, and children. His rule was one which had been questioned seven years prior when he was 21, a very young year for most Chirotes. Even back on Earth in the hay-day of the civilization there he was still a 'young adult'. Regardless, the unofficial dictator of all mankind was still a child: a child of the Great One, Corazon Santiago, and the Supreme One, Mogul Brianbacks, but a child none the less.

His rule in the World Council, changed in name to stop referencing to the dead 60,000 people back on Chiron, was not entirely supreme but it might as well have been. The council required a three fourths majority to overturn his veto, and a vote of no-confidence the year prior had resulted in the councilman's direct execution. Eric had not bothered to hide the execution; he had shot the man in the council chambers and continued on with his business as the Chairman of the Council and Chief-Director of the Wosul base.

His rule was a despotic one, but he hid it to some degree where he felt the need to do so.

Wosul had climbed to a population of 2,475 people, for which there was now a 500 manned garrison police force under the command of Commander Greene, a long standing supporter of Eric Brianbacks.

Moonby Ridge had been renamed to Dragon's Ridge and it now had a population of 893 people, most of who worked in the mines, of which there was a 200 manned garrison police force under the command of Colonel Yangi, a converted supporter of Eric Brianbacks who was deeply impressed by Commander Greene more than his own dictator. Dragon's Ridge became the epicenter for construction crews to base their firms, causing a rise in the civilian population.

Dragon's Landing had had its' defenses torn down in the aftermath of the War of 2707, much to the consternation of Colonel Eldido. That base had grown to an astounding 1,739 people which mandated a garrison police force of 375 men under Colonel Eldido. The large black man had taken to swearing up a storm at having the greatest responsibilities within the little monster's empire of slaves, but none of the beer. While he actively espoused derogatory terms, when a small uprising against Eric had begun in 2710 in the aftermath of the War of 2707, Eldido utterly crushed the uprising and all captured rebels were strapped to the end of artillery pieces and fired upon at point-blank range. His loyalty was never questioned despite his foul mouth.

The Haunted Woods, a subsection of Dragon's Landing, was rolled over for a base further away from Dragon's Landing to become a part of the Belt lands. The population of the Haunted Woods moved to a new site dubbed Dragon's Tears, for the primordial waterfall that had developed in the region with the increasingly human-oriented atmosphere and eco-system, to account for 682 men, women, and children. This population was garrisoned by a 75 manned police force which was under the command of Colonel Mikaels, raised in status to avoid further difficulties with his superiors Yangi and Eldido.

That, in total, accounted for the majority of the 5,891 men, women, and children on 'Golgotha', of which 5,789 were residents of these bases. The remaining 98 citizens of the World Council, as yet not given any official political name other than the old 'United Factions' heading, were civilians in the Belt lands. These were the first all-time farmers in some 600 years.

In 2714, the first high-powered laser was experimented with in attacking the teeming masses of the mind worms on Chiron from the surface of Alpha Rhea. The experiment proved unsuccessful unless you count sizzling a couple of the small mind worms and tickling the larger mind worms now roaming the continents.

All in all, by 2714 it seemed as if Eric Brianbacks was well on his way to forcing his own veneration as the Supreme One amongst his fellow human beings. That would change with his new legislation in 2715.

* * *

_2715_

In 2715, Eric Brianbacks, now 29 years of age, passed a new legislative act which shocked the human population to its' very core. In a single night, Eric passed the Fertility Act which required that all fertile females of Alpha Rhea be converted into quasi-state property. In this single 24 hours of time, the unofficial dictator of mankind undid 3,000 years of female equality in society.

As the act stated, "all females of fertile bearing bodies shall henceforth be required to mate only with the most viable of men in society: the strongest, the smartest, the wisest, et cetera. All females of pre-fertile bearing bodies are to be cared for by barrack leaders preparing those girls for their own life as child-bearing queens of our society to avoid the degradation of fragile genetic structure. All males of pre-fertile bearing bodies are to be cared for in separate barracks preparing them for the rigors of the destined careers in society based upon their evaluation tests when they're three years of age."

The act went on to state that, "all females of post-fertile bearing bodies shall be sequestered to the fields and mines of humanity in order to divert male work efforts towards the difficult manufacturing sector of our economy. These females may marry and they may choose their chosen procreator of pleasure. If, by miracle, females of post-fertile bearing bodies do become pregnant and the procreator of pleasure is deemed unworthy to cast his genetic material back into society, the pregnancy shall be terminated as shall the woman's."

The act further stipulated that, "no woman may decide her mate during her fertile years, which shall be scientific-state decision based upon genetic strength and real-world abilities."

The act essentially justified the rape of every nubile and child-bearing woman in all of society. One of the unwritten sections of the act was that women of underwhelming genetic material would have their children's DNA tested before an unsanctioned abortion was state-ordained. The hypocrisy was that the state specifically did not sanction these abortions by writ of the law, but it ordained them at the practical level and was never challenged in the courts.

The first evidence of the act's split in society became known as the 'Concubine Wives of the Imperial Palace', the 30 women held in the Chief-Director's residential fortification and kept for his own personal usage. When one of the women did escape in 2792 after 77 years of the process, she was dismayed to see society having so openly welcoming the act's authority. What she did not see were the first 50 years when rape truly was a forceful thing in which 2,000 women were essentially bolted down in the same position and repeatedly gave birth to whoever of Divine Choice graced her room.

Similarly, she did not see or hear of the Public Women, those whose career became that position to satisfy the teeming masses of men who were not chosen as Divinely Disseminated, and were essentially state posts of human flesh to release their pent-up desires to mate.

The world of man had degraded itself back to the days of many eras past. With the loss of Mogul humanity was doing all it could simply to hold on to its' very civilization, though many did and do argue that the loss of Mogul meant that 'civilized' civilization was lost that very hour with the institution of Eric Brianbacks as the leader of mankind.

Regardless, the Fertility Act had long reaching consequences of which are worthy to explore.

* * *

_2723_

In eight years time Golgotha had experienced its' first breakthrough since the annihilation of Mogul down on Chiron; Eric's Space Program was finally operational. Now with Dragon's Landing outfitted with the capacity to return them into space, Eric's authoritative administration had plans for the rest of the world.

In the fall season of 2723 a bill was introduced into the World Council in which a Space Program would be an institution which would be solely state administered. The Headquarters for the Space Program would be an entire new wing to the growing bureaucratic fortress at the heart of Wosul: Mogulian Hall. Mogulian Hall was filled to the brim with wings devoted to the different departments and programs being run through the World Council administration. Even the World Council met in the center auditorium of the bureaucratic fortress whose walls were built of the scraps from the old spaceships which had brought them to Alpha Rhea: stasis generator.

It was from Mogulian Hall that Eric Brianbacks unofficially ran the entirety of mankind if only because he felt it too soon to announce his ascension into the position of Great One. No one would ever be able to usurp his father from the Supreme One position that Mogul had earned through his unification of four factions on Chiron. Unless mankind split from his current administration, which he had to expect, Eric would never be able to peacefully unite different factions of mankind as his father had done.

No doubt Eric had heard of the rumors that this was where he also kept his harem of wives and concubines. That was an utterly laughable matter. Eric had a select group of women in his own residence that he hardly ever visited due to how busy he was. With the Fertility Act disrupting the very norms of pre-Eric society, Eric had to continue playing his games of cat and mouse with rebellious parts in his society to prevent any outright rebellion.

On the positive side of things, the population had exploded from just shy of 6,000 in 2715 to just over 9,000 in 2723. The first generations of workers were currently being trained for their life of borderline drone society. Eric would never resort to a hive mindset like Yang as that literally flooded the few citizens left with power, and if the drones ever reversed the effects then outright civil war was common. That was one of the reasons why Chairman Yang had never managed to expand beyond the tail end of the western continent.

Most of that new population was in the Belt being trained to be farmers, miners, energy technicians, and other sorts of minimized but essential tasks. Of course they were also being partly administered by the first generation elites. Those eight year old elite children were the product of the best of his current society. Eric was well aware that his lack of children was making his collective thinking he was sterile. That was untrue. He was waiting for the _right_ egg in each of his Chosen females before going for an actual child. He could flood society with cheap imitations of his father and mother's genius, but he would rather select 30 from the highest strata of ability and genetics that remained in society. He was not left with much in which to cast his genetic material back into the collective net, but he would be damned if he destroyed humanity by being so base as to cast it back _willy-nilly_.

Now that society had a Space Program once more, Eric was using it in order to recollect the errant satellites that had continued to orbit Chiron when mankind was no longer surviving that hell ground which made their Golgotha look like a paradise. It was amazing how mankind had managed to survive against the mind worm for so long, but then again Eric made a point of arguing against his father's perfection as the Supreme One. It was Mogul's Betty project which had brought the large mind worms upon them and ultimately was like the penicillian the antibodies of Chiron needed to wipe out the human infestation on Chiron. However, Eric knew that like any virus that he would mutate mankind until it could easily stand a chance of surviving the warfare against mind worms.

The private sector was already calling his current administration a necessary evil in order to wage a holy war against the mind worm menace which had destroyed something as monstrously close to _divine_ as Mogul's First Wall.

Eric turned his weary head towards the designs for the new bases outside of the current core of society. Wosul was not at the heart of the current core, but Eric's infrastructure building was currently managing to switch the focus from Dragon's Landing in the center of the plains below the Moonby Ridge and the Rodri Ridge to Wosul, the real capital of mankind now.

The plans called for a society circling around Wosul in concentric circles. It required that several natural features of Alpha Rhea would have to be erased or completely fabricated in order to lay the foundations of what Eric had planned. And there before his very eyes lay the only copy of the elaborate concentric circles upon which society would be built. When the timing was right, Planet would look up and see the very EYE it thought it had destroyed looking down on it with vengeance of its' own in mind.

**(Story)**

**AN: December 11th, 2011: Hey guys. Can you tell that I enjoy writing for you guys? I can't! Considering that all I seem to be doing is trying to make as many edits and new material as I can before I have to start working for my next semester. You guys have me running on overdrive! Sheesh!**

**As always, I desire your reviews. If you fail to review then I shall be forced to kill you. I'm sorry, it's just the way it has to be. Mohambi told me so. ^^**


	5. Embryonic

**AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure. **

**(Story)**

_2741_

Eric was now 55 years old and was a seasoned veteran at the political games his society played in order to throw him from the reigns. It had helped that both society and he were mere children when he had taken those reigns: he being ten years old and they being middle rung in ability.

His administration officially termed this year 45 A.M. (After Mogul), but Eric had no desire to always think of his dead old man. What little Eric remembered of his father was that he was always busy with some crisis. Mogul in Eric's lifetime had masterfully threw off the anti-United Factions, the remnants of UPAMB, and managed to get Planet to attack them before the mind worms turned to the UF.

Mogul had so little time for his son, especially when his wife died defending the Spartan faction in the United Factions. What did Mogul think his four year old son could benefit in a world which could destroy such a powerful woman as his own mother? That was when he was sent with the other early colonists to Alpha Rhea to be the official Assistant Director, though he wasn't allowed to do much at first, in order to get hands-on training at how to run an entire base.

It had been hoped that the position could be followed up as a Chief-Director under his father when Mogul evacuated to Alpha Rhea, if that were necessary. However, the last reports from Dragon's Nest were that someone had cut the Supreme One's arm off as he was overlooking the last of the evacuees. Then contact was lost with Dragon's Nest, and this is where Sybil Narso became so engrossed in his sense of loss that some 60,000 people had died in the span of four hours.

However, that had not happened. Mogul was dead. He was no more, and no more how much a ten year old boy and 3,000 people dearly wished, he would never be again. There was no use crying over spilled milk.

2741 was a special year due to the first burst of open rebellion since the Quick War in 2707.

In the spring of 2741, an outbreak of the Elder Society in Dragon's Landing and Dragon's Tears called upon their garrisons to honorably attempt to defend the base, but were eventually overrun by the mob of the 2,000 civilian population of each base who had planned beforehand on how to overrun the 400 manned garrison.

With the loss of communication with either Dragon's Landing or Dragon's Tears, Eric rolled out the garrisons from Wosul and Dragon's Ridge, a combined force of 2,500 men and began to march on Dragon's Landing, the more strategic of the two rebellious bases.

Upon reaching the defenses of Dragon's Landing, the civilians raises the tachyon barrier and left retreated back to the barrack fortress where just hours before they had overrun the garrison stationed there.

With the entirety of the base focused in the barracks, Eric took the time to walk around the base to where the tachyon belt could not be run due to a lack of available of constant energy. There he ordered his troops over the wall and then he split them into groups to pinpoint in on the barracks.

Converging on the barracks, the crack troops minted to fight much more difficult wars with mind worms slaughtered the rebellious Elder Ones.

With the entire population of Dragon's Landing killed, and having reestablished a hold on the base, Eric looked out over the horizon towards the visible towers of Dragon's Tears. Surely they knew that he had come out to play their game now. It spoke well of their coordination that radio silence was maintained between the two rebellious groups.

Taking his troops up another part of the Rodri Ridge, he returned to former tactics that he had against Moonby Ridge. Instead he now used his entire force to drive along the top of the ridge towards the barrier of Dragon's Tears. Since it was a narrow pass, it would be difficult to take, but that was what riot shields were for. With a solid set of walls of riot shields meant to withstand the blast of even the gatling laser. Therefore as a rule of writ, none of the civilians would be able to get through those riot shields without extremely good aim. Sure enough, one or two of his soldiers fell due to lucky pot shots. But for the most part, they fell just like any other foolish would-be attackers upon his army.

The reason for that was the Fertility Acts which he had passed almost 30 years ago. The strongest of those born into the first generation became the replacements for the old garrisons whose loyalty was at best questionable like any other Elder One, citizens who came before the Training.

With the fighting turning against them in such rapid succession, the Elder Ones attempted to surrender, but Eric gave them no such opportunity. They were indiscriminately slaughtered. Rebellious notions in his society could not be harbored at this early junction. It was far too critical that order be maintained before freedom if they were to insure that mankind had any sort of chance to proliferate the universe.

Giving no quarter meant that Golgotha's population levels returned to 10,000 with 4,000 having died within the day. Of those 10,000, only 1,000 were Elder Ones. Their influence in society was now no longer as affluent as it had been. They had been the parents, but now Eric was in complete control with the Elder Ones being a small minority who would continue to shrink.

Everything was going according to plan.

* * *

_2777_

Society was gifted with 20,000 proliferate citizens. Among these 20,000 souls only some 2,000 were actually administering the burgeoning society while 20,000 citizens meant an army of 4,000 that Eric Brianbacks had at his beck and call constantly maintaining his order in the bases.

It was officially called Year 82 A.M. It would only be another eighteen years and it would be the centennial since Mogul Brianbacks and 60,000 other human beings had perished. As that memorial came upon them, society seemed bleak with Eric's tyranny. Though it was true that society really was well on its' way to becoming independent of his reign, they were stuck with him.

It was akin to what an historian on Earth had said once. That slavery had been a necessary evil according to the imperialists in order to make economic sense of their burgeoning world order. Eventually, when slavery was no longer effective or necessary, that was when it was abolished, but not until that moment.

The same could be said of Eric Brianbacks; he was a necessary evil for society to survive. Eventually, and undoubtedly this would happen, society would get rid of him the moment they truly no longer needed him, but not a moment until that became true would he be ousted. Not if he had anything to say about it at least.

* * *

Well, 20,000 citizens became 30,000 by 2788. In 2792, it was an amazing happenstance that one of the 'concubines' of Eric's harem escaped and reportedly could not even recognize the streets of Wosul, they had changed that much.

By the year 2796, the centennial of the Death of Mogul, society had grown to amazing proportions for the small bits and pieces it had been beforehand. Now there were 44,000 human beings spread across the reaches of Alpha Rhea and they had even turned to Beta Rhea to continue spreading the human population before they began their official 'holy war' against Planet. They would take Chiron for their own and be known as Chirotes once more. Not a single man alive was left that remembered the skies of Earth or of her waters, but nearly all Elder Ones remembered the fuzzy pink landscape of Chiron: their home.

By the God they would have their home back.

But not all agreed with this way. Not all of them saw it in the same way. Cohabitation with the mind worms was preferred to them, and nothing would change their mind.

Here was the beginning of the two societies that would emerge from Eric's embryonic despotism. What would become the Greens and the Reds, those for cohabitation and those against it.

The policies emerged around the same time, as Eric's official policy was to rid the universe of the mind worm. But since not everyone saw it the same way, or even to the extremes which Eric planned to take it, Eric's despotism was doomed to fail from the beginning of the holy war.

Let it be a lesson to all those who think themselves wise, not even the Great Ones can predict their demise.

**(Story)**

**AN: December 11th, 2011: Sorry I got all Christmas Carol-y on you at the end. I just had fun rhyming at the end and so I went with it. Anyway, this is the first official 'update' to this story since I posted the author's announcement in April, so I'm looking forward to you guys actually noticing that I'm putting effort in to these stories once more.**

**Please review for my coffers are empty and only jangle a little when I look to see if I have any reviews. I'll even whore myself out. A handjob for a review...not...**


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